Coming Home
by sonsofmogh
Summary: Sometimes the universe has ways of telling you you're getting it wrong. It could be anything — an attractive stranger, a knock on the door, a crash landing from the clouds, a piece of post, or a long-lost acquaintance. Anything in between is fair game. Sugawara Koushi knows that as well as anyone. That doesn't mean it isn't a slap in the face when all of the above happen to him.
1. A Long-Lost Acquaintance

Suga barely stopped himself from glaring at his handheld device in dismay. Inwardly, he cursed the three regular floor supervisors and their respective reasons for not being at work that day, and a special hellish fate awaited the manager who decided to deputize an unsuspecting Suga for the job.

He had three calls from cashiers to answer (toilet break, price check, customer complaint), and absolutely no backup to meet the company's ironclad customer service standards. Feeling the sweat beading on the back of his neck, as it always tended to do when he was nervous, Suga bolted first for the toilet break.

"Ishikawa-san," Suga gasped between heavy breaths, "if you could please help Hideki-san with his price check, it would be very helpful. Then you may use the toilet."

One of Mitzukoshi Department Store's newest food market cashiers, Ishikawa Keiko stared at Suga with her heavy eyelids, a slight frown tugging at her disinterested face. "I need to go now, Sugawara-san."

I'll bet you do, Suga thought uncharitably as he noticed the outline of a mobile phone in her trouser pocket. Steeling himself to use the 'manager mode' he had been informed he would need to cultivate, Suga shook his head. "First, price check, then toilet. I expect you back at your register in less than ten minutes, as well."

Ishikawa gave Suga a dirty look before stomping off to do as he had bid. She wasn't the first fellow cashier to begrudge him his temporary battlefield promotion, nor did he believe she would be the last for the day. He didn't think running around like a decapitated chicken was much of a desirable goal, so he shrugged off his coworkers' thinly veiled contempt and kept answering calls.

Fortunately for his good judgment, he knew better than to send a disgruntled cashier to handle a complaint. That, Suga would do himself.

However, the second he approached the register in question, he wanted to run in the opposite direction and send someone else to take care of this, as well. The customer at the front of the queue was a hunched over old woman who frequented the store and knew every member of management by name. He had checked her out as a cashier several times without incident and had even been told that he was her favorite. He felt confident he could reason with her adequately.

The next person in the queue, however, was who Suga desperately wanted to hide from.

After worrying his bottom lip until it almost bled, Suga approached the register with his best customer service face. "Good afternoon, Kajiyama-san," he said with a bow, recalling her name from countless credit card swipes. "How can I be of service?"

Kajiyama's expression lost some of its sourness as she noticed Suga. "Well, Suga-chan, you can begin by being less of an idiot than this one," she croaked in her stereotypical old lady voice, jerking her thumb in the direction of the cashier. "You are always such a dear, so please talk some sense into this stupid child, who is clearly brand new in order to be this inadequate."

Suga cringed at the sound of his own name, because as he suspected, the man behind Kajiyama looked up from the sports magazine he had been thumbing through while waiting and made direct eye contact. Recognition was instantaneous. Even when Suga gave a nervous little wave and turned his attention back to Kajiyama and her likely-inconsequential gripe, he could feel that ever-intense gaze boring into him. He didn't need to see it to know it was there.

"These soybeans are a disgrace!" Kajiyama stated, turning up her nose to the pile of produce in front of her, which seemed to be up to the same high standard as everything else in the store.

Lifting up a few of the beans, Suga inspected them and, as he suspected, found absolutely nothing amiss. But out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that the queues were beginning to lengthen, due to the slowdown for the complaint and price check, respectively, as well as Ishikawa's currently closed register.

With that in mind, he let out an emphatic and completely feigned sigh. "They are rather peaked," he lied. "That just won't do. Would you like new beans, or would you accept a small discount and our humblest apologies?"

A sly smile crept across Kajiyama's face. "A discount would be fine, Suga-chan. I'm happy this company is finally starting to do something about its falling standards by promoting a nice boy like you."

Suga flushed at the compliment. "Always happy to help," he said as he keyed in the price adjustment personally. When the new cost showed on the monitor, he pointed at it. "Is that better?"

With a curt nod, Kajiyama both indicated her satisfaction and Suga's dismissal from her circle of attention. Relieved that the issue had not been a more strenuous one, Suga cast one last achingly brief glance at the man behind Kajiyama. As he flitted off to make sure Ishikawa didn't make a disaster of the price check, he left Sawamura Daichi behind him for a second time.

Eager to do something other than think about Daichi, Suga politely shepherded a few of the waiting customers to the customer service desk to be checked out until he was sure Daichi would be gone. The constant calls on his palm pilot also did well to distract him until the floor manager came to relieve him for a quick ten minute break.

Desperation to break out of the confinement of the store overtook Suga, and he bolted out the front door and around the side of the building, only stopping once he was out of sight so he could sag against the cold bricks. His breath froze in the chilly December air, and his skin steamed slightly as the sheen of sweat he had worked up turned icy. He knew it was stupid to be outside without his coat, but he didn't want to miss a single minute of being out of that place by walking back to the employee room to get something as stupid as a jacket.

"You can't even spare a 'hello' for an old friend, Suga?"

A shiver pulsed through Suga that had nothing to do with the temperature. "Daichi," he said flatly, not daring to look at the man he had not seen in ten years. "I thought you left."

"I wanted to talk to you, so I waited. Besides, I'm not the one who dropped off the face of the earth."

Daichi's words felt like a punch in the gut. Suga sank lower and lower against the wall until he was sitting on the ground. It made it easier not too look at Daichi, even if his butt was now as cold as the rest of him. "I know I did," he conceded with a sigh that bordered on exhaustion. And maybe he was exhausted. Life had a way of doing that when plans unravel.

"I take it med school wasn't in the cards for you, then," Daichi said simply.

With a wry smile, Suga harrumphed. "I made it a year. Some stuff happened. It didn't work out."

Suga was startled when he felt rather than saw Daichi sink down next to him. "Why not move back home, then? You could have taken a break and started over. There's no way you're happy in a job like this."

"I'm fine," Suga said more harshly than he had intended. "Working in a grocery store doesn't make me a lesser person, Daichi. It just makes me a person who works in a grocery store."

Out of the corner of his eye, Suga saw Daichi turn a magnificent shade of red. "That's not what I meant!" he blurted. "I meant, you always wanted to be doctor. With your resolve, I was pretty sure you'd find a way to cure cancer or something." When Suga looked at Daichi fully, the latter gave him a shy smile. "You were always one step ahead of everyone. Especially me."

Suga's mouth hung open for a minute before he hugged himself in a paltry effort to stave off the now-prominent chill on his skin. "I met someone at school and I thought he was what I wanted. I was wrong, my grades slipped, and then I dropped out. I could go back to college someday, but I'll never get back into Tohoku after the way I left."

Daichi blinked at him. "A — a guy? I didn't know you were, um, into guys."

Suga gave him a derisive look. "I kissed you. How could you not know?"

The other man had the good grace to look embarrassed. "I thought it was some sort of friend thing. Like how the French kiss cheeks and stuff. How many times do I have to tell you I'm dumb about things outside of volleyball before you actually believe me?"

Suga couldn't help but chuckle, sending a playful punch at Daichi's arm. "Not even Kageyama was that clueless."

"Yeah, he was," Daichi deadpanned before they both laughed.

Drawing a calming breath, Suga repeated, "Yeah, he was." With a sigh, he added, "I miss them, Daichi. The team. Beingon a team. It was so much fun. And God, I miss you the most."

Daichi didn't answer. Instead, he peeled off his jacket and draped it around Suga's shoulders, which was when Suga finally noticed it was emblazoned with the Karasuno Volleyball Club logo. "You still have that? Mine fell apart years ago."

"Oh, no," Daichi said, shaking his head. "This one is actually brand new. I'm the faculty advisor for the team, so I get one. Takeda-san is the vice-principal now, so he was happy to turn the team over to me."

Suga's brows shot up. "You teach at Karasuno?"

"Physical education. It's one of the changes Take-chan fought for when he became the new vice. He thinks kids are more well-rounded and socially adept when they have sports in their lives."

"And he's right. It was certainly true for me." Suga reeled at this information. "Keishin?"

With a snort, Daichi replied, "Still saying 'just one more year.' I wonder how much longer it will be before he gives up and admits that he wants to coach until he's his grandfather's age when he retired." It was hard to miss the note of pride in Daichi's voice. It was the same when he used to talk about their team. "We're actually in town for a few practice matches for the next couple of days. Datekou, Seijou, Shiratorizawa. I spent my morning seeing my boys paste Seijou."

"Your team must be top notch, then." Not wanting the conversation to steer any further into personal waters than it had already gone, Suga fell silent. He had a million questions. Did Daichi still talk to their old teammates? Did he have someone in his life? And, possibly on a more selfish tangent, how had he felt at the train station on that last day?

Daichi broke the stalemate. "I have a son."

Suga's head whipped to the side to stare at Daichi. "Y-you got married, then?"

Shaking his head, Daichi smiled wryly. "Not so much. My team at Aichi lost a big match, and I had played like shit. Hajime just told me to sleep it off, but that idiot Oikawa —"

"You're friends with Oikawa?" Suga couldn't even process the idea of Aobajousai's setter, whose entire goal in life seemed to be antagonizing anyone he doesn't consider an ally, being someone Daichi would ever willingly spend time with, let alone befriend. Oikawa would have to make great overtures to gain Daichi's trust, and Suga did not think Oikawa would make that sort of effort unless there was something in it for him.

"God, no," Daichi said quickly. "Iwaizumi Hajime — you know, he was Oikawa's vice at Seijou — was my roommate in college, and we both played on the volleyball team. He and Oikawa were kind of an, er, item, so Tooru was around a lot. He drove from Tokyo whenever he could to watch our games, so he knew us well. Hence why he thought it was an excellent idea to drag us to a club and get drunk off our asses. I ended up getting hammered and hooking up with some random girl. Nine months later, I was a daddy."

Even the knowledge that his break had been over for a few minutes already wasn't enough to shake off the leaden surprise at this bit of news. All thoughts of him being surrounded by Seijou alumni were drowned by these revelations. Daichi was a father, with a steady career that he had worked for. Suga was a college dropout cashier at a grocery store. He would have laughed at the disparity if the shame weren't pressing down on him so heavily.

"I . . . I have to go," Suga said finally. "It was nice to see you. It was really nice." He knew he was babbling, but Suga could not bear to say half of what lingered on his tongue. He ruefully shrugged off the black jacket, which smelled so much like Daichi that he was barely willing to part with its warmth. "Here. Thanks for that."

Daichi shook his head. "Keep it." He pushed it back towards Suga. "I can get another one. Keep it and remember that you're Karasuno. You're a crow, just like me. Remember our words, and maybe you'll find some peace in them." Then he patted Suga on the shoulder and left.

"Take to the skies," Suga murmured to himself as he mechanically trudged back into the building. It was only when he was already clocked out and ready to leave for the day that he noticed that there was a key to a room at a local hotel in the pocket, but Daichi was long gone.


	2. A Piece of Post

Pink-cheeked with excitement, seventeen-year-old Suga couldn't stop smiling as he ran through the house, clutching his university acceptance letter in his hand. Tohoku University was "happy to welcome Sugawara Koushi to the Tohoku School of Medicine and Health," and Suga was overjoyed that the wait was over.

On a cloud fuelled by bliss, Suga punched the air repeatedly as he bounced up and down on the balls of his feet. He knew he was being ridiculous, but it was hard to care when he had received entry into a prestigious university on his first application.

Fist still lofted in victory, Suga stopped suddenly as a thought occurred to him. His celebratory dance forgotten, he dug his phone out of his pocket. Scrolling his recent messages, he rapidly thumbed in the words "I'm coming over" and ran out of the house, letter in hand, sprinting the mile and a half to Daichi's house.

Chest heaving by the time he arrived, Suga knocked on the door as he let himself in, as was his custom. He nearly jumped out of his shoes in the genkan, forgoing slippers as he skipped barefoot through the hallway and into Daichi's room at the back of the house.

"It came!" Suga panted jubilantly when he spied Daichi, hunched over at his desk with half a dozen open books. "I got my letter!" To punctuate his point, he thrust the now-crumpled letter from Tohoku towards Daichi.

It took less than a second after Daichi turned around to see that something was direly wrong. A blanket of concern squelched his excitement as his mouth bowed into a tight little frown. "Daichi?"

His best friend of three years turned away, broad shoulders shrugging with a heavy, resigned sigh. Wordlessly, he picked up a letter of his own and handed it to Suga without so much as a glance backwards.

Suga took the letter from Daichi, his own forgotten as his brows furrowed in apprehension, and read the contents at least a dozen times before he could stammer a reply. "Y-you didn't make it?"

As he said the words, Suga felt his heart drop all the way down to his ankles. Reading the letter a few more times to make sure he hadn't lost his ability to understand words, Suga's brain spewed out a thousand reasons why this could not be happening. Some of them slipped out of their own accord. "But . . . the references, your marks . . . you had everything they wanted." What I wanted, he almost-said.

"Apparently not," Daichi said quietly as he held out his hand for the letter. Suga handed it back, his teeth kneading his lower lip, almost drawing blood when Daichi crumpled the letter and threw it against the wall.

Afraid his words would cause Daichi further distress, Suga simply rested a palm on his best friend's upper arm and gave a gentle squeeze. The flesh under his hand was tense and unyielding. Suga couldn't blame him.

"Should I have listened to Takeda-sensai, Suga?" Daichi said quietly.

His grip instinctively tightening, Suga remembered the day that he, Daichi, and Asahi were all but instructed to stop playing volleyball in order to focus on academics. Of course, none of them had complied because the Spring High was near, and with it, a final shot at glory on the court. Suga, in particular, had been encouraged to quit, as he was focusing on getting into the medical program at Tohoku and wasn't even a starting player.

Asahi had the easiest decision to make; he didn't even want to go to college. Suga had simply known that his time wasn't done, so he chose to keep playing. Daichi didn't even blink before refusing to leave the team before the largest tournament of the year once he saw that his fellow third years felt the same.

Had Suga and Asahi's willingness to continue despite the possible consequences pushed Daichi into a decision he should not have made? Daichi had been poised to cast aside his own desire to continue in order to give the first and second years a chance to build for the next year, and Suga had essentially milked a confession from Daichi that he was not ready to retire. Suga could feel his cheeks flame with shame.

And now, with that tournament looming large and fast, Suga and Asahi would be heading to the Spring High knowing they had chosen wisely. There was no telling what mindset Daichi would have, which would leave Karasuno's backbone, its captain, vulnerable to all sorts of destructive thoughts. The thought alone made his stomach churn as his leaden chest crushed his insides.

Suga knew he was often looked to for advice, but he desperately wished that someone would tell him what to say to make this right. Only there were no words in any language that could do that, so with a sigh, Suga braced both his palms on Daichi's drooping shoulders and peered at the books on the desk.

To his surprise, they were travel guides, with college pamphlets guttered between the various open pages. None of these places were in the Miyagi prefecture, and two of them were out of the country altogether. "California?"

Daichi, making no move to extricate himself from Suga's grasp, shrugged. "Volleyball is huge there, and my English is okay. I'm not good enough to earn a scholarship for it, but I don't want to stop playing."

"But . . ." Suga allowed his voice to trail off in lieu of the utter selfishness that was currently monopolizing his thoughts. And he hated himself for it. But what about me? his traitorous brain offered.

As if Daichi could read Suga's mind, he frowned at the California book and flipped it closed. "That just feels too much like running away."

Suga couldn't stop the heavy sigh of relief that Daichi was no longer considering relocating thousands of miles away. California was probably a lovely place, but the thought of Daichi being there while Suga was on the other side of the world left him with a hole in his chest where his heart should've been. He could not bring himself to care about how cliché that sounded; after all, a cliché is only the truth repeating itself a thousand times over because it works.

"Don't go," Suga said automatically, only to whip his hands over his mouth in dismay. When Daichi turned around to look at him, as surprised as Suga was at the reflexive plea, Suga shook his head rapidly as he clamped his hands over his cheeks to hide how red he knew he had turned. "Forget I said that. It's none of my business."

Daichi covered one of Suga's hands with his own and threaded their fingers together. "It's okay. I always want to know what you think, Suga."

There was no way Suga was imagining the heat in his cheeks once again, very aware of how intimate Daichi's gesture was. It was difficult to fight the urge to smooth away the worry lines around Daichi's eyes with his free hand, and even harder to remember to breathe while Daichi looked at him so intently.

"You should do what makes you happy," Suga finally said, not trusting himself with anything deeper than tinned wisdom. "Whether that means staying in Miyagi or even going to California."

That wasn't what Suga had wanted to say at all, but he knew he never would have forgiven himself if he had said anything to the contrary. He could never, would never be so selfish as to dictate someone else's life. No matter how much it might hurt.

"I want to go to Tohoku with you."

Suga's heart hammered to hard, he was afraid Daichi might feel his pulse quicken. It took everything he had to plaster a smile on his face and flick a self-deprecating wave with his now-lonely hand. "Oh, you don't need me! You can do anything, Daichi."

His heart broke with every syllable.

However, the words seemed to have the intended effect. Daichi squared his jaw and nodded. "I'll re-apply, and if that doesn't work, I did also get accepted to Aichi Ed. They don't have the biology program I'm looking for, but it's a start."

Biting back an objection about Aichi being over 300 miles away, Suga clapped Daichi on the shoulder a little too hard and, almost an octave too high, squeaked, "That's more like it."

Daichi was not accepted the second time, either; Aichi Ed needed an answer in a week. The decision made itself.

Both Suga and Daichi were leaving the same day on the train to Sendai, but Suga was staying in the city while Daichi would transfer to another train headed to Tokyo and finally to Aichi.

Suga selfishly wished that his last moments with Daichi for the foreseeable future weren't going to be spent on a noisy commuter train and not in a more intimate environment. His belly threatened to explode with all the things he wanted to say to his best friend before they parted ways; instead, he swallowed them until he felt ill.

A hand waving in front of his face made Suga realize that Daichi had been trying to get his attention.

"You're being a lot quieter than usual," Daichi remarked. "Where were you just then?"

Opening his mouth to respond that he had been thinking or some sort of nonsense, Suga promptly snapped it shut because he felt like he was going to puke if he spoke. Instead, he mustered something that he hoped looked like his regular boisterous smile.

Daichi lowered his head. "I know, Suga. I know"

"No you don't," Suga muttered, just low enough that Daichi didn't hear.

Suga was relieved when their train pulled up and its current passengers began to disembark. All of the ridiculous things swirling about in his head were drowned in the hustle and bustle of stowing luggage and finding seats. They found seats towards the back of the train that were relatively isolated. Suga found himself budged up next to Daichi, despite the lack of crowding, their arms brushing together. If Daichi thought Suga was too close, he didn't mention it — and Suga was grateful.

They filled their last forty minutes together with inane chatter. How would Ennoshita, the new captain of the volleyball club, do with Tanaka as his vice-captain? What sort of first year players would their Cinderella run at the Spring High bring in as new recruits? When would Hinata figure out that Kageyama was a little bit in love with him? They didn't mention one another at all.

Soon, the train shuddered to a halt in Sendai, and Suga found himself with his arms, head, and heart full but his words woefully empty. On the platform, he and Daichi stood staring at one another, both clutching their luggage for dear life, as if it would rescue then from this moment.

At once, they dropped their things and clashed into a bone-crunching hug.

Suga felt his eyes burning. He was so glad that Daichi wasn't talking, because he didn't think he had it in him to answer in any meaningful way. It was a full minute before Suga was able to mete out, "How long until your next train?"

"Ten minutes."

Finally pulling out of their fierce embrace, Suga just looked at Daichi's face. His mind flitted back to the day he had met Daichi, and a pitiful laugh bubbled out of his chest, marred by the sob he was barely keeping in. "I'm going to miss you, Gorgeous-chan."

Daichi tried to smile, but his expression merely melted into the one he reserved for volleyball — intense and stoic. "This isn't goodbye, Suga. I'm not that easy to get rid of. You can knock out a few teeth, but the rest of me is another story."

Suga bit his lip until the pain of it overran the urge to melt into a puddle on the pavement. However, something hot and blistering in his chest began to assert itself, bringing with it an awareness that Suga had spent three years trying to suppress.

Some barely-conscious part of Suga's brain heard the boarding call for Daichi's train to Tokyo.

Frowning, Daichi glanced at the departure board and then back at Suga, his face sad and helpless.

Resolve coiled inside of Suga. He wouldn't waste this opportunity to make sure Daichi knew how much he meant to Suga over the past few years until he felt like he had known the other boy forever.

Putting his sweat-moistened palms on Daichi's cheeks, Suga leaned in and brushed their mouths together.

Suga had never dreamed of endangering their rock-solid friendship by confessing the feelings that had swelled in him over the years, but seeing Daichi ready to walk out of his life had given him the wherewithal to do what he had wanted to do ages ago. It was the perfect coward's way out; he could leave before surprise turned into something uglier, and he would never have to know.

"I love you, Daichi-chan," Suga said softly before gathering his things and heading towards his own train, which did not leave for another half hour. He could almost feel Daichi's gaze boring in his back, but Suga didn't dare turn back now.


	3. A Startlingly Attractive Stranger

The manager of the Karasuno Volleyball Club looked at him intently as she handed him a pamphlet and an application. "We'd love to have you, Sugawara-san."

Suga took the proffered material with a smile and an, "I'll think about it." He had never been a starting player in middle school, but he had enjoyed playing because of his supportive senpai. However, high school level athletics, especially with his slight frame, would be too much work for Class Four college prep student, like himself.

But even as he walked home from his first day of his first year of high school, Suga found himself utterly torn between the three pamphlets in his hand: Mathematics Club, Choir Club, and Volleyball Club.

The Mathematics Club would look very good on his college applications, and it would involve minimal extra work and travel. Choir Club was popular for students who only wanted to get their club requirement out of the way as painlessly as possible. Suga could sing fairly well and had always liked music class, so it still presented itself as a legitimate choice.

That left volleyball. It had been a whim sign-up in junior high, and though he had thrown everything he had into learning the ins and outs of the game, he did not start a single game as the official setter until his third year, only for the team to be crushed out of the Boys' Junior High Volleyball Tournament by Kitagawa Daiichi and their far superior setter. That loss had left a bad taste in his mouth and a fire in his belly.

His feet halted of their own accord as he glared down at the pamphlets, wishing someone would just decide for him.

Suga never saw the baseball hurtling towards him, but he did notice everything around him going black for a moment as it struck the side of his face.

The pavement met his hip swiftly and painfully, sending a shockwave of agony in every direction. It was not quite enough warning for him to avoid slapping his temple on the ground. The rain of abandoned paper came a second later.

Voices clamored in the background, muffled as if underwater. Suga couldn't understand what they were saying, and he didn't think he would until the ringing in his ears stopped. It wasn't until the voices — one in particular — grew louder and earnest hands shook his shoulders that Suga could make out what they were saying.

"Hey, are you okay?" the voice repeated over and over.

Suga's eyes were clamped closed against the pain in his side, his face scrunched into a definite wince. He fought the urge to say to this person, "Do I look okay?"

Finally, Suga forced his eyes open. He had short, black hair, wide-set eyes, and his teeth raked over his bottom lip. The sun formed a dizzying halo around this stranger's head, who was possibly the most beautiful human being Suga had ever seen up close. He could vaguely recall being attracted to other boys before, but nothing this intense.

Without thinking, Suga reached up to pat this Gorgeous-chan on the cheek, and with a beatific (and possibly delirious) grin, he gasped, "You're pretty," before passing out.

When Suga regained consciousness, his head felt like it was made of lead. And fire. Lead that was on fire.

"Ahhhh!" he cried as he tried to look around and make sure none of the rest of him was also made of fiery lead.

A hand pressed firmly down on his shoulder, and a voice that seemed vaguely familiar murmured, "Try not to move."

Suga didn't feel the need to buck this command as he lingered in a state of pain-hazed confusion. He had no idea where he was, or who was with him, but trying to figure it out was too painful and difficult. All he knew was that movement equaled pain equaled not trying it again for a while.

He was vaguely aware of a hand holding his, along with a small stream of whispers he couldn't quite hear. Involuntarily, the corner of his mouth tugged into a mind-shatteringly painful smile as his battered face muscles scolded him for his trouble.

Warm arms scooped him up, and Suga found his arms wrapping around his mysterious benefactor and nuzzling into a warm, broad chest. There was a lingering scent of sweat in the soft fabric of the T-shirt, but Suga reckoned that he rather liked it, liked him.

For no good reason whatsoever, Suga felt like everything would be okay before drifting off into unconsciousness.

Once again, Suga woke up feeling like his head was close to exploding. However, this time, he found himself on cool, white sheets and in a room full of much-too-bright lights. Now he started to remember.

Something had hit him. Someone had checked on him. Passed out. Same someone picked him up. Passed out again. And then — "Oh, my God."

Blistering agony be damned, Suga looked around the room, only to find Gorgeous-chan sitting on a horridly uncomfortable bench against the wall, watching him intently. So he hadn't imagined it; he really called this boy pretty. He desperately wanted to sink through the bed and the floor until he landed . . . wherever the other side of the earth was.

Out of the corner of his eye, Suga saw Gorgeous-chan leave the bench and approach. Squeezing his eyes shut seemed like a perfectly reasonable solution to his swelling embarrassment.

He didn't expect a rough, gentle hand to smooth the hair out of his eyes. "Hey."

Suga reluctantly opened one eye and saw that Gorgeous-chan was gazing at him with a shy smile on his lips. "You going to stay with me this time?"

The genuine concern in Gorgeous-chan's — and he really needed to come up with something else to call this guy — voice made Suga open up his other eye and stare just a little bit. There was absolutely nothing about this boy (they seemed to be approximately the same age) that displeased Suga.

With that as a given, Suga decided to look around the room. He was obviously at the hospital, which was a half mile from where he had lost touch with both his consciousness and location. "How did I get here?" he asked stupidly.

Gorgeous-chan flushed from the top of his head all the way past the collar of his painfully white T-shirt. "I, um, carried you here from the park. The baseball club were playing catch and, well . . . their new pitcher doesn't aim too well."

Suga didn't realize he was laughing until his head felt like it was going to crack in half from the effort. "That has to be the stupidest thing that's ever happened to me."

Soon, though, they were both laughing, although Suga decided to do so in a less animated fashion. When he caught his breath, he held out a shaking hand. "I'm Suga."

The other boy smiled broadly. "Sawamura Daichi."

"Now I can stop calling you Gorgeous-chan," Suga blurted, much to his own horror.

Daichi erupted into a deep, rumbling belly laugh and continued until he was wheezing and wiping tears from his tomato-red face. Suga would have laughed along had he not felt like flinging himself out the window in embarrassment, even though Daichi seemed to be taking it in a semi-positive way.

"Sorry, Sawamura-san. I think my brain stopped working."

This only caused Daichi's mirth to tumble into a cackle. "I've — never — b-been ca-called —p-pr-pretty before!" he stuttered, again shedding tears in his amusement. "S-sorry." Sobering, he continued, "I don't mean to laugh. It's just that the last time someone called me pretty was when I was four and my grandma thought I was a girl. And please, just Daichi is fine."

Suga's eyes widened, amazed that anyone could mistake Daichi, who reeked of masculinity, for a female. That, however, was not on the menu of horrifically embarrassing things he was going to add to the already long list. Instead, Suga said, "Thank you for helping me. You didn't — you actually carried me from the park? That's half a mile!"

Daichi's cheeks reddened as he shrugged sheepishly, tugging on the hair at the nape of his neck. "It was nothing."

There was an awkward silence as Suga drank in the sight of an otherwise self-assured pinnacle of masculinity melt from mere gratitude. He was not afraid to admit that he enjoyed it thoroughly.

When Daichi recovered from his bashfulness, his brows raised as if he remembered something important. He went back over to the bench he had occupied and scooped up a small stack of battered paper. It was only after he presented them to Suga that he recognized them: the club pamphlets and flyers he had dutifully collected, had mulled over before being so rudely interrupted by a baseball to the skull.

Mathematics Club. Choir Club. Volleyball Club . . . Gorgeous-Chan would surely think he was a loser now.

However, one glance at Daichi told him that impression was evidently mistaken.

"You play volleyball? What position do you play?" Daichi asked hopefully. Just the word passing through his lips transformed Daichi into someone else, someone transfixed, and Suga felt a pang of jealousy that making the decision to join wasn't some existential crisis but a matter of simplicity.

"I did in middle school," Suga supplied. "I was a setter, but I wasn't very good."

Daichi shrugged at this. "You can always get better. No one is a genius when they start out, even a genius."

Suga held back a scoff, because he was fairly sure that the setter from Kitagawa he had faced was born a genius, tossing volleyballs exactly where they needed to go for his spikers to do the most damage, or throwing darts disguised as serves.

Noncommittally, Suga asked, "I assume you play?"

Daichi nodded. "I'm a wing spiker, but I'm far more useful in the back row, receiving."

Suga raised a brow. "Wouldn't that make you a libero?"

Waving his hands in front of him frantically, Daichi stammered, "No, I'm not nearly good enough to be a libero. Besides, I was thinking . . . I might like to be a captain someday." His cheeks reddened. "Or maybe a vice-captain. Or at least be considered for it. You know . . . I can't do that as a libero."

Carefully considering the other boy, Suga was absolutely sure that he had never met anyone like Daichi before. It made him want to declare his everlasting loyalty to the Volleyball Club, but common sense settled as he remembered how much it would take out of him as a Class Four.

With a sigh, Suga said, "I really shouldn't. It will be a lot to do, especially being in Class Four."

Daichi's eyes widened. "You're Class Four? So am I! I don't know how I missed you in class. You're hard not to notice."

Knowing he was a hundred percent the color of a tomato, Suga diverted his eyes and, quietly enough he was sure Daichi couldn't hear, murmured, "So are you."

He couldn't believe himself. He had a crush on this boy he had only met once but would be seeing a lot of, being in the same class. It wasn't that Daichi was a boy, since Suga had put those particular pieces together towards the end of elementary school. He was attracted to boys and girls, but mostly boys. It was okay; it was a part of him.

But Daichi — despite being one of the most beautiful people Suga had ever met — was also caring, sincere, and earnest. Moreover, he was potentially his very first real friend in high school. Maybe that was what caused him to ask, "So, when was that first practice again?"


	4. A Fall From the Clouds

Sendai was a large city, but it was even larger when one first moved there.

Suga was reeling from the difference between rural Miyagi, where he had grown up, and this sprawling metropolis that was the prefecture's beating heart. It made him want to re-examine the practicality of commuting from his family's home near Karasuno, but not only was the train ride was almost an hour each way, the station was a half hour's walk from Suga's family home. He wasn't sure his studies could bear the loss of three hours out of every day just to a commute.

The student housing, however, was a ten minute walk from the university, which made the move a bit easier to swallow. At the very worst, he could change his mind at a later date, even if his parents would lose forty-thousand yen in key money.

But as much as he should have been, Suga wasn't worried nearly as much about university or Sendai or living in a brand new place. His mind kept diverting to Aichi, where Daichi was likely settling into his own tiny broom closet disguised as an apartment, the flush of a new challenge burning inside of him. Daichi was born for challenge. Suga had gratefully leeched that quality from his best friend for three years and sorely missed it right at that moment.

He could almost hear Daichi cheering him on as he stuck his key into his apartment door and opened it.

The room was, as he had guessed, beyond small, as most urban housing tended to be. The narrow bed and desk together took up almost half the floor space, which made him grateful for the recessed kitchenette and closet. A cursory examination of the rest of the unit turned up a tiny toilet cubicle with a sink, but no shower or bath.

He had been aware that the bathing facilities would be shared with the rest of the residents on the second floor, which hadn't disturbed him because he had spent three years in a locker room with open showers. It was just the loss of that last, indulgent bit of home, where he could linger a little longer than necessary in a cold shower when he wasn't able to dispel thoughts of a certain wing spiker from his mind before he crawled into bed. And there had been more of those cold showers than Suga would have liked to admit.

That was all over now.

With that thought, he unpacked the few belongings he had brought until he deemed the room to be home at last. He even changed the rough, unfamiliar sheets to the ones his mother had lovingly forced him to bring. As he settled himself in for a long night, he was grateful for that last scent of home (even if it was only his mom's favorite laundry detergent) before he drifted off into that restless sleep he always felt in an unfamiliar place.

The next few days made Suga's head spin. His small desk was soon piled high with books and syllabuses and charts — the regular pre-med student fare. He already had more homework than he knew what to do with to the point where, although he missed home and his friends and the volleyball club, he was grateful for the solitude so he could start his school year on the right foot.

Before he knew it, two weeks had passed at a blistering pace, and Suga found himself fishing through his dirty clothes pile (his mother would be scandalized) for the least-wrinkled thing he could find and hoped a dusting of air freshener would take care of the rest.

After nearly a month, Suga realized he couldn't continue like this, disheveled with Febreze soaking into his pores. He had no classes for the rest of the day and, hence, no more excuses. With a glance over at the corner and the unopened box of washing powder, Suga took it, his clothes basket, and his anatomy textbook to the coin laundry on the ground floor.

A few machines were running, but the room was empty. Grateful for the numerous open machines, he split his entire clothing supply between two machines and settled onto the bench along the wall to study while the forty-five minute wash cycle ran its course.

Something hot and sticky vaulted into his lap.

Looking up in horror from his probably-ruined textbook, Suga saw a dark-haired boy around his own age holding a now-empty cup from the area coffee shop and wearing a smirk that might have made Oikawa Tooru jealous.

"Where have you been all my life?" this boy asked with a quirked brow and a no small measure of melodrama.

Suga bristled as he realized that whoever this was had probably doused him in cappuccino on purpose. Forcing the most genuine-looking smile he could fake, Suga answered, "In need of a shower, apparently."

The boy laughed and clapped him on the shoulder with an unnerving air of familiarity. "I like you. We should be friends."

Not in this lifetime, Suga thought uncharitably.

"My name is Kawasaki Kai, but you can just call me Saki."

Fighting the urge to glare at this loud, ridiculous person who had dumped coffee all over him and his twenty-thousand yen textbook just to introduce himself, Suga smiled even wider with every polite bone in his body and nodded. "Nice to meet you, Kawasaki-san." He momentarily wondered whether it was rude to not offer his own name, but he could not think of a single reason he would ever voluntarily seek out Saki and found no reason to encourage Saki to do the same.

"Why such a spoil-sport, Sugawara-kun?" Saki said, a far-too-toothy grin stretching across his irritatingly pleasant face.

Suga started. "How do you know my name?"

Saki had the good grace to at least blush. "I've seen you around, so I asked the floor supervisor about you. He gave me your name. I live three doors down from you on the second floor."

Irritation warped into trepidation as Suga realized that he would probably see a lot more of Saki than he ever cared to do. Rudeness would gain him nothing, and politeness would only cost him a little bit of his sanity. With a heavy sigh, Suga shared, "I've been trying not to fall behind on assignments, so I haven't been the most sociable person. I guess it's about time to meet my neighbors." He even gave Saki's arm a playful punch.

Suga thought he imagined something darken in Saki's eyes before it was replaced by a mischievous sparkle. "That it is, Sugawara-kun. That it is."

Three weeks later, they were in a coffee shop, swapping embarrassing stories from middle school. Two weeks after that, they were having sex on the floor of Suga's apartment.

Floating on a cloud of bliss that could only spawn from one's first real romantic relationship, Suga found himself wondering why he had ever been put off of Saki. He often found little gifts on his desk after a long day of classes. Chocolates (which Suga adored), little baubles, and even a tongue ring that was the result of a lost bet over which one of them had the most embarrassing mother. Suga had dawdled over the decision to try the piercing, but the gift spurred him to get it. It only lasted a week, but the experience had been a worthy one.

In one of these little moments of bliss, Suga and Saki were curled into one another on Suga's bed, sharing a pair of earbuds as they lazily drifted in and out of sleep. A feeling of well-being covered Suga like a blanket. He could not understand why he had closed himself off so abruptly when he got to college, when he could've been reveling in this new and exhilarating feeling that much sooner.

Just as Suga was ready to drift back off to sleep, he felt the faint buzz of his phone in his pocket. As carefully as he could, he pulled it out to see who had texted.

**From:** Gorgeous-chan  
**Text:** Dude, I've never felt like such a shitty player in my life. Everyone on this team is better than me. I told you that you make me better.

Suga smiled at Daichi's text. It had been a well-worn subject between the two of them. Daichi insisted that Suga was instrumental in making the players around him better, whereas Suga had always countered that Daichi's leadership by example was what drove the team to a higher level. It took Ennoshita telling them to stop being ridiculous, that they both contributed equally, before they stopped debating the issue. With a grin, Suga replied:

**To:** Gorgeous-chan  
**Text:** Don't make me tell Chikara on you. Don't think I won't. :P

Beaming at his phone, Suga eagerly awaited Daichi's response. He had only talked to the other boy a couple of times via text since they parted ways at the train station, and he hoped to have a proper conversation sooner rather than later. Nothing seemed to be amiss after Suga's awkward kiss and confession, which relieved him to no end. Even if Daichi was now a long-distance friend, at least they were still friends.

The phone vibrated one more time, but before Suga could answer it, a fast-as-lightning hand snatched it from his grasp.

"Who's Gorgeous-chan?" Saki asked coldly. The lack of warmth in his boyfriend's tone belied their comfortably intimate position.

Taken aback, Suga shrugged while Saki's arm was still firmly belted around his waist. "It's just Daichi. It was a nickname I gave him when we first met because we weren't exactly given a chance to exchange introductions."

A fist curled against Suga's belly, making him want to push out of Saki's increasingly uncomfortable embrace. "It's nothing," he reassured, not entirely sure why he was justifying his friendship with someone from high school that lived hundreds of miles away.

"Good," Saki hissed right next to Suga's ear.

Suga couldn't help but shiver.

From that point, Suga made a point of not texting around Saki. He didn't think he was doing anything wrong or unfaithful, but his boyfriend seemed so threatened by anything slightly affectionate from anyone else — male or female. Not wanting Saki to feel like he wasn't loved, Suga kept his texts to himself from then on and regularly deleted his history.

It became routine and seemed to resolve the issue.

It took Suga a while (to the tune of months) to realize that he was texting his best friends in the world less and less as a result. He had still not really made many connections at college since he had started dating Saki. It wasn't that he had not wanted to, but more that the opportunity to mingle really did not present itself that often. When he felt lonely, he called Saki. When he needed someone to talk to about something bothering him, he called Saki. When he needed to get off, he called Saki.

Noting his absence from his Karasuno friends circle, Suga shot a few texts to his former teammates to get caught up: one to Ennoshita, asking how things were going with Tanaka as vice-captain; one to Kageyama, inquiring about whether he had learned anything about his new spikers and where they liked the ball; then to Hinata, asking how he liked being called senpai.

Ennoshita, to Suga's lack of surprise, replied promptly.

**From: **Ennoshita Chikara  
**Text:** Well, Ryu doesn't karate chop and body punch everyone quite like you did, but he's managed all right.  
**Text:** It's really nice to hear from you, by the way. It's weird not having you around.

Frowning that Ennoshita had thought enough of Suga's social absence to remark upon it, he shot a quick reply about being busy and promising to do better. He barely hit 'send' before he got his second reply, this time from Hinata.

**From:** Hinata Shouyou  
**Text:** Suga-san! I was just thinking about you  
**Text:** Kageyama and I have been trying a new type of quick toss, and we're so terrible at it!  
**Text:** I just told him that you could probably learn it faster because you're good at that and then he hit me and called me a dumbass.  
**Text:** Then Takeda-sensai pulled us into the office and started talking all serious about how we were teammates and needed to rely on each other  
**Text:** We just kind of stared at him because Kageyama hitting me is like Natsu hitting me.  
**Text:** Anyway, it was weird.  
**Text:** And yes! Being a senpai is THE BEST. One of our first years asked me to save him from Kageyama, and I laughed for like an hour. Who's even afraid of stupid Bakayama, anyway.  
**Text: **Are you playing on your college team?

Suga chuckled at Hinata's inane chatter, easily picturing the incident in his head and remembering so many more like it with fondness. Quickly after Hinata's last text, Kageyama replied:

**From:** Kageyama Tobio  
**Text:** Don't listen to Dumbass. I'm not scaring first years, and it's Hinata's stupid fault that he can't hit the ball because he is terrible at everything.

At this, Suga laughed out loud. His kouhai were growing up, but deep down, they were still the ridiculous first years Daichi had banned from the gym until they learned to play together. He missed their lively bickering and relentless enjoyment of the game, and he didn't miss the fact that Kageyama knew what Hinata had said to Suga, and it was nearly ten at night. It meant that they were spending time together outside of practice and that Daichi owed him dinner when they saw each other again.

Nonetheless, when he thought about it more and more, he missed Daichi most of all. He loved his kouhai and wanted the best for them, but none of them had been his best friend quite like the boy who had carried him a half mile for medical attention when he didn't so much as know Suga's name.

Well, what Saki didn't know couldn't make him jealous.

**To:** Gorgeous-chan  
**Text:** I miss you.

Staring intently at his phone as if willing a reply, it took barely a minute before he got his answer.

**From:** Gorgeous-chan  
**Text:** I miss you too, Koushi. I mean it.

Daichi had never used Suga's given name before, but it tugged at something in his chest — something he knew he should not be feeling when he was in a steady relationship with somebody else. A knot the size of a melon in his belly, Suga answered:

**To:** Gorgeous-chan  
**Text:** I meant what I said.

And he did.

Less than an hour later, Saki came over in a mood and in the mood. With the pang of loneliness his earlier correspondences had stirred in him, Suga happily obliged. He drifted off to sleep in Saki's arms, content that his other family was doing all right.

Suga supposed that had been the night all of his phone contacts had been erased, save for Saki and a handful of relatives. With Suga's general lack of outside contact, it had taken him nearly a month to notice.

Shaking with anger, Suga thrust his phone and its naked contact list in Saki's face and growled, "What gives you the right to do this?"

Saki plucked the phone from Suga and gave him a stern look. "You can't seriously expect me to let you sweet talk half a dozen other guys while we're dating. I love you, Koushi. I'm right here, not in the middle of fucking nowhere!"

The sound of Suga's given name on Saki's tongue felt wrong and accusatory. He had never felt so close to punching someone in earnest in his life as he did right then. It was only the iron grip he had on his own biceps that kept him from lashing out at Saki. "You have no right to tell me who I can and cannot talk to. They have been my friends for years, and they were my teammates."

Suga barely recognized the fire in his tone. "Karasuno was my home a long time before this place ever was, and if you can't deal with that, then you can't deal with me." With that, Suga stormed out the door and back to his own apartment to cry himself to sleep.

The next morning, he awoke to a neat little spread on his desk of sticky rice, pears, and a drinking glass full of tulips. The bowl of rice was weighing down an extravagant letter from Saki, which begged his forgiveness and repeated how sorry he was at least a dozen times.

Not remotely in the mood to forgive Saki's horrible attitude towards his friends, Suga threw away the flowers and the note before eating the fruit and rice, if only to keep ants from collecting in the apartment.

This pattern continued — breakfast and a florid apology — for two solid weeks before Suga finally texted Saki and said they needed to talk. When Saki came over less than five minutes later, they merely flung themselves at one another. Suga found himself bent over his desk, with Saki poised at his ready and waiting entrance.

"Tell me you love me, Suga. Me and only me."

His entire body aching with desire, Suga gasped, "I love you. Only you."

After that torrid bout of lovemaking, Suga decided that it would be best to keep his texting to a minimum. And as the school year progressed and the workload buried further and further, Suga even felt relief that the only social contact that was required of him outside his ever-growing stack of books was Saki. It was easy and orderly and inevitable.

He felt something akin to trepidation when he received a text a month later from an unknown number, but the sender was obvious.

**From:** Unknown [Create New Contact]  
**Text:** Well, I guess I owe you dinner. Chikara caught Hinata and Kageyama all over each other in the broom closet at the gym before practice. When we're back for summer break, we'll hit up the ramen place.

An ache the likes of which Suga had never felt poured into his body. He missed Daichi so much, and he hated that he couldn't reply. Saki would be so angry if he did.

That thought made Suga grit his teeth. "I'm a grown man," he said aloud, just to hear the words with his own ears. "I'll talk to who I like."

**To:** [Create New Contact: Gorgeous-chan]  
**Text:** You're on.

The small victory boosted Suga's mood more than anything had in weeks. With a grin on his face, he sent one more message:

**To:** Gorgeous-chan  
**Text:** If you don't mind, could you send me the guys' numbers? My phone had a mishap and I lost my contacts.

**From:** Gorgeous-chan  
**Text:** Sure.

Alert after alert chimed as Daichi refilled Suga's contact list. This time, he was going to tell Saki that, under no uncertain terms, he could text whoever he pleased and would do.

However, with exams leering over both of them, Suga didn't see Saki for three days, nor did he have time for unnecessary communication. The subject simply did not come up. It was not until right after they both sat their term exams and Saki grabbed Suga's phone to snap a selfie of them victoriously leaving the exam hall together that the other boy truly looked at Suga's phone.

Assuming Saki was simply perusing the photo gallery, Suga waved at a fellow exam sitter with a cheerful smile on his lips before a hand closed around his wrist like a vice.

"Ow!" Suga exclaimed as he fruitlessly tried to tug his arm away from Saki's grasp. "You're hurting me."

"You're still talking to these people?" Saki said in an even, humorless tone. "I thought I told you how I felt about that."

A scowl, something Suga rarely associated with his realm of expression, dropped into place. "You don't have the right to tell me who my friends are, Kai."

"Oh?" Saki said, his light tone unharmonious with the pain shooting up Suga's arm. His grip tightened, and Suga could almost feel his fingers go white. "Then why haven't you told them about me, Koushi? If you loved me half as much as you pretend you do, they would know you're taken."

Tears pricked the corners of Suga's eyes. "Stop," he gasped. "Please."

"You're a slut, Koushi. All these boys you talk to," Saki leaned in closer, "All the dirty things you do with me."

Suga's free left hand balled up until his nails bit into his palms, and with a strangled cry, he sent his fist careening into Saki's cheek. He felt bones crunch under his knuckles; whether they were Saki's or his, he neither knew nor cared. There was a shriek of pain from Saki, which made Suga relish the idea of having a broken knuckle or two.

Seconds later, hands closed around Suga's throat, and his lips mouthed cries for help that never came. Black spots danced in front of his eyes like rain splashing into puddles until the puddles grew and so did the black.

The last thought in Suga's head before unconsciousness washed over him was of whether Daichi would ever know what happened to him.

Suga woke up in a sterile white room with something lodged in his throat. He splayed his aching fingers over his neck, only to find a cast over his right hand, an IV in his arm, and a tube jammed down his esophagus. That tube ran across the bed and was mounted into the wall. Any pre-med student like Suga knew intubation when he saw it.

He was already nauseous, but that thought alone made his belly churn angrily. But ultimately, Suga was just tired. So, so tired.

Rather than give into the urge to rip out his IV and his oxygen tube so he could storm out and demand to know where Saki was so he could break his other hand on his now-ex-boyfriend's face, Suga sank further into the cool, crisps sheets and lay there until someone finally came in to check on him an hour later.

The doctor, his voice thankfully dispassionate, told Suga that Saki had been arrested for assault, that Suga's esophagus had nearly collapsed, and that they were going to keep him overnight for observation. He also had three broken bones in his hand.

Suga nearly asked about any injuries Saki had suffered, only to realize that he genuinely no longer cared.

The next day, Suga was released under his own care with a prescription for painkillers that he flushed down the toilet. He regretted that later when his hand throbbed in its cast and kept him awake for most of the night.

He didn't go to his classes the next day. Or the day after that. Suga was just so very tired.

After three weeks of truancy, he received a phone call he did not answer, a voice mail he didn't bother checking, and a letter he didn't even remove from the post box, informing him of an appointment with the dean of students that he never attended. Suga supposed his expulsion letter was in the stack of mail he never read sitting in front of his door.

The only person who saw him during those three weeks was the delivery boy from a nearby restaurant. And then the delivery boy didn't come anymore because Suga's credit card was declined. Suga didn't bother to pay that, either.

Soon after that, the landlord informed Suga that his rent was past due, which Suga baldly told the man he could not pay. Three large, burly men arrived the next day and monitored Suga as he packed up his belongings and vacated.

A girl from his physiology class, Harada Mari, took pity on Suga as he gawked at his luggage on the sidewalk. She invited him to stay with her during the summer holidays, as her family was wealthy and spending a month in Hawaii. At this, Suga felt a twinge of sympathy for Harada-san before realizing that he was far more pathetic than she could ever be.

He had not so much as looked at his phone, let alone charged it, since the incident with Saki, which had been over a month before. It wasn't until his second night at Harada-san's house that he checked the barrage of messages he had waiting. There were a few from Saki, calling Suga filthy names and threatening to kill him if he testified at a criminal proceeding that had no doubt already passed.

Suga guffawed at this as he skimmed the rest of the messages. There were a few benign ones from Daichi, wondering when Suga was going to get back so he could ante up. Something caught in his throat that had nothing to do with his already-healed neck.

He scrolled his contacts and almost-called his parents to tell them what happened. When he rehearsed how he would tell him he let himself be beaten and bruised so handily, Suga merely opened the window and threw his phone into the yard, hoping the gardener would run over it with the mower.

The next day, Suga took a much-needed shower and began looking for a job.


	5. A Knock on the Door

Suga stared at the room key as he paced in front of the door it belonged to, tightly clenching the Karasuno jacket around himself. Daichi was in there. Well, he probably wasn't, since Suga had the key, but Daichi's clothes and presence and smell were in that room. Ten years ago, he would not have thought twice about just barging into Daichi's space, but while Daichi was almost the same, Suga most certainly was not.

Finally, Suga just knocked.

Not expecting an answer, Suga knocked once more before leaning against the wall and sinking to the floor. Maybe Daichi would come back anyway. Maybe he was there with someone else who had a key. That didn't matter. He just wanted to talk to Daichi properly, so he decided to wait.

How long he stood there, he didn't know, but his lively debate was interrupted by the sound of voices coming up the stairwell. One of them was immediately recognizable, and Suga felt his heart start to pound. Daichi was there. He was really there.

The voices started to become more distinctive, and Suga could understand what they were saying. ". . . I swear I didn't lose the key. I think I just locked it in the room, so if you could just —"

Daichi's statement stopped short as he and a short, squat man in his fifties entered the hallway. Feeling both of their stares, Suga nervously held up the keyring on one finger and dangled it for both of them to see.

"As I said," Daichi indicated with a blush, gesturing towards Suga, "I didn't lose it. It's right there."

The middle-aged man, who Suga supposed was a hotel employee, looked at them both dubiously before muttering, "If you say so, Sawamura-san." Shaking his head in obvious annoyance, the man left Suga and Daichi alone in the hallway.

"I knocked," Suga said stupidly. "I don't know why, since I probably have the only key."

With a chuckle, Daichi tugged at the hair at the nape of his neck. "We could probably go in." He reddened. "That is, if you don't mind staying for —"

"I'd love to," Suga supplied, feeling Daichi's consequent grin fill him up to the brim. His hands shook as he put the key into the door and let them both in. The room looked exactly like Suga expected: clothing draped all over the bed and an empty takeaway graveyard on every available surface. "I knew your mom cleaned your room."

"I've been better about it, actually. It's just been a hectic couple of days. Iwaizumi did not tolerate a mess, so the first time I left my clothes on the floor, he head-butted me." Daichi shook his head as Suga giggled. "I mean, who does that?"

Suga tried to formulate an answer, but everything he could think of to say could not begin to express the overall feeling of well-being that consumed him by just standing in front of Daichi. He knew what he wanted to say, but there were no words for it. Instead, he flung his arms around Daichi and clutched his long-lost love like he would sink if he didn't.

Tears were streaming down Suga's face, but he did not care if Daichi saw. He was done grieving for lost time. Instead, he wanted to celebrate a new beginning. He would never let the people he cared about get away again.

"What happened to us, Suga?" Daichi croaked next to Suga's ears.

Loath to break their embrace, Suga pulled back to study Daichi's face, which was red and contorted. Daichi was crying, and not the quiet little tear tracks down cheeks. Proper, ugly crying. "Don't . . . don't cry. Please."

"I can't help it," Daichi managed before his face crumpled. It was a long while before he could respond coherently, and even then it was in concentrated bursts, flanked by rubbing his palms angrily at his eyes. "I didn't even know if you were dead or alive, and then I saw you today. Keishin told me to leave practice, I was so distracted. I've been holding this in for hours. You're the only one who's seen me cry since I was little."

Suga stared. "I — I'm sorry. I didn't mean for this to happen. I really didn't." He brushed the pad of his thumb over Daichi's wet cheeks. "I'll never leave like that again."

He was surprised when Daichi's mouth crushed into his. Daichi's lips were searching and desperate, and one of them (Suga wasn't sure which) groaned loudly when Suga responded to the kiss. When they broke away from each other, they were both breathless.

Gaping at Daichi, Suga stuttered, "But you . . . I — what?"

Daichi bit his swollen lower lip and averted his eyes. "I just didn't want to have never done that. I've wanted to kiss you since the day I met you, but I didn't know how to ask. You were always better at that than me."

Despite his increasingly buoyant feeling of well-being, Suga laughed humorlessly. "If I've learned anything, it's that I am terrible at life and shouldn't be left alone to make decisions."

A kind smile on his still-red face, Daichi tugged Suga towards the bed to sit on the edge. "Why don't you start from the beginning?"

With a resolve he had not associated with himself for so many years, Suga stoically told Daichi about everything that had transpired from the moment he'd arrived at college that had conspired to separate them. His relationship with Saki, the jealousy about the texts, the altercation that had landed him in the hospital, and finally Suga's graceless exit from college.

Daichi had listened patiently to Suga's story, but the latter had not realized how difficult it had been for Daichi to remain silent. He looked down at Daichi's hands, which were balled so tightly into fists that his nails left little red half-moons indented into his palms. Daichi's teeth were grinding together to the point where Suga was worried they might break.

"But I made it," Suga summed up as he massaged the backs of Daichi's hands, hoping to alleviate the coiled rage he could feel brimming under the surface. "It was bad, but it got better. Saki can't hurt me anymore, and my life is my own again."

Shaking his head, Daichi said between clenched teeth, "Then why didn't you call anyone after he almost killed you?"

Suga lowered his head, having waited for that question. "I was ashamed. He treated me like I was weak, and I let him. Iwas weak, and I didn't want any of you to ever see me like that. After a while, I thought you all might be too angry with me to go back and start over again."

"Not even me?" Daichi asked, his tone far less rigid. "You've seen me at my worst. I wouldn't dare judge you for yours."

"Especially not you," Suga sighed. "I've been a little in love with you since you were still Gorgeous-chan. That was your contact name in my phone since I can remember."

Daichi flushed, and a smile sneaked out from his stony visage. That's when Suga noticed something new. "You got your tooth fixed. I thought you were going to keep it like that forever like some sort of honor badge."

Chuckling, Daichi replied, "That would be Oikawa again." At Suga's eyeroll, he continued. "I had said something like that, until he rightly pointed out — since he had watched the game when I lost the tooth — that a collision with a teammate whose defensive territory you had invaded was hardly something to commemorate. I hate that little fucker when he's right."

Suga laughed. "That does sound like something he would say. But I kind of liked it; it had character. I always wanted to . . ."

Brow raised, Daichi pushed, "You wanted to what?"

Knowing he was red from head to toe from embarrassment, Suga admitted, "I wanted to kiss you and stick my tongue through the open space, like we did when we were kids and had missing teeth."

By the end of Suga's confession, both of them had tears of mirth running down their faces. Suga was happy to see that Daichi's mood had leveled out into familiar, comfortable territory. "Oh, I missed this," Suga said as he leaned against Daichi's shoulder. "You and me. We were a great team."

"Yeah, we were."

Things were quiet for what felt like hours, but Suga liked it. It was comfortable, like an old sweater, and not like those weeks he spent holed up in his apartment after things had ended with Saki. It was Daichi. If everything wasn't all right, he would make sure it was because he was the captain.

"I don't ever want to lose you again, Koushi," Daichi said, resolve rich and ripe in his voice. "I would throw you over my shoulder and take you home with me right now if I thought you'd let me."

"I wouldn't let you," Suga agreed, "but the sentiment is appreciated. But I don't want to lose you, either. I want us to be sitting around the TV when we're old, watching the national volleyball championships because we're too weak and feeble to come in person. I want that to be us."

Daichi's expression sobered. "But my son will be there. Today, tomorrow, until I die, Hiroshi will always be there."

"He's a part of you, Daichi," Suga said, his tone earnest as he took both Daichi's hands in his. "It would be an honor to be a part of his life, as long as his mother will allow it."

Eyes narrowing, Daichi groaned. "She won't be a problem. Her parents wanted her to leave him in an orphanage rather than waste her future with an unwanted child. I threatened to kill her father if he did anything of the sort, so then I ended up with a baby to raise when I was barely twenty years old. My mom ended up taking him until I finished school."

"It must have been hard to leave him behind," Suga mused aloud before he realized he had wanted to think that rather than say it.

However, Daichi just nodded. "I called my mom every day, just to make sure he was doing all right. I spent all my pocket money on train tickets home so I could see him for just a little bit on the weekends. When he was only two and caught the flu, he ended up in the hospital. I think I cried myself to sleep every night until he got to go home, I wanted to be there for him so bad."

"Oh, Daichi," Suga breathed, his heart swelling the more Daichi talked about his son with such love and reverence. Unable to stop himself, he caressed Daichi's cheeks and left a whisper of a kiss on his mouth. "How could you ever not know I loved you when you have it in you to be like this?"

Daichi's eyelids fluttered closed as Suga kissed him, leaning into Suga's hand. "Because I'm dumb like that," he murmured. "You know that."

If he thought he could, Suga would have stayed in that spot, in that moment, forever, but he knew that they were both still on very separate paths. It didn't mean that Daichi had to be out of his life, but they couldn't be wrapped up in each other. Not after everything.

"I . . . I should go," Suga said quietly before his resolve faltered. "You're probably busy with the team, and —"

"What do you want to do with your life, Suga?" Daichi interrupted, a mask of determination that Suga remembered and had relied upon for strength so much when they had been in school — both on and off the court. However, just when Suga was about to respond that he just wanted Daichi to be 'happy,' Daichi stopped him. "And I want you to forget anything self-sacrificing, or thinking you don't deserve it. If you want to work in a grocery store for the rest of your life, then fine. If you decide to turn into a hermit and write love songs for the ukulele, then that's okay, too.

"Just tell me exactly what you want, and I'll figure out what I can do to give it to you." Daichi colored and lowered his head. "Sorry for rambling, but I mean it."

Suga stared at Daichi, unable to formulate a response. No matter how many times he opened his mouth to eke out a reply, his jaw snapped shut of its own volition, wordless. Perhaps it was because he only had one answer and Daichi knew him well enough that he would not, could not, ever ask for it. "Daichi . . ." he managed to say.

"And don't lie to me, because I'll know."

"I just want to come home," Suga blurted before he did something stupid like throw himself at Daichi and ruin whatever it was that they had managed to rebuild that day. "I want my life back, and I want to be me again."

With a grin, Daichi said, "And I know just where to start."

For the rest of the evening and far into the night, Suga and Daichi huddled around a laptop and watched the Karasuno vs. Seijou match from earlier that day over and over again as they both made notes. Suga relished the far too unfamiliar sensation of getting into a game, and as he rattled off a list of exercises the setters might want to try, he understood how well Daichi had known what he needed.

Around two in the morning, when Daichi received a text from Keishin telling him he had better not still be obsessing over video, Suga finally realized how exhausted he was. He didn't even bother stifling his yawn or refuse the T-shirt and loose boxer shorts Daichi thrust into his hands. Suga did briefly consider changing in the bathroom before dismissing the idea. Daichi had certainly seen him in various states of undress in the past; it was too late to turn into a prude.

Regardless, Suga noticed Daichi staring at him even after he was shrouded in much-larger clothing.

"You've lost weight."

Suga shook his head. "Sometimes it's food or rent. Having a full belly isn't all that great when you're sleeping under a tree in the park."

Daichi wanted to say something, Suga could tell, but he was grateful when the comment never came. He didn't want Daichi's pity or his charity. His support and caring were more than enough.

Their next hurdle arrived when they both stared at the single-size bed, waiting for the other to take it or the floor. At last, Daichi rolled his eyes and said, "This is ridiculous. We've shared a bed before. I think we can handle this."

No, we can't, Suga's brain screamed as his traitorous mouth said, "Of course, we can."

Suga was surprised but pleased when Daichi curled up behind him, wrapping an arm around Suga's middle and pulling him close. He felt lips brush against the back of his neck and a quiet, "G'night, Suga."

"Goodnight, Daichi," Suga answered before falling asleep more easily than he had in a long time.

They were rudely awakened at six by an angry shout and someone hammering on the door. Suga knew that voice well. "Oh, no," Suga hissed as he vaulted out of bed, stirring a sleep-tousled Daichi into a loud yawn. Nervously, he asked, "Should I leave?"

Daichi gaped at him before laughing out loud. "Don't be an idiot, Suga. It's just Keishin."

"I know. But what if he —"

"He won't."

"And what if I —"

"You won't."

"And you —"

"Suga, relax!" Daichi said emphatically, tugging Suga back down on the bed. "You're with me. That's all he needs to know, and he respects both of us enough for the hows and whys not to matter."

Suga relented and gestured towards the door. Daichi dutifully filed out of bed and opened the door during a particularly raucous round of knocking, handily dodging the knotted fist that almost whacked his nose. "It's about time," Keishin grunted as he thrust a cup of coffee at Daichi. "The bus got here ten minutes ago. You're late. The point of you staying over in the city was so one of us that isn't me was early."

"Shit," Daichi swore as he bolted for his suitcase. He produced a pair of trousers and a T-shirt. This gave Suga just enough time to make eye contact with Keishin, whose eyes widened at the sight of his old kouhai.

"Well, well, look what the cat dragged in," Keishin said with a laugh. "No wonder Sawamura didn't get out of bed at a respectable hour. He had company."

The shade of red that flourished on Suga's cheeks was spectacular. "We aren't . . . that is, we don't —"

"Don't be an asshole, Keishin," Daichi called as he struggled to thrust his arms into the correct holes of his shirt. "I finally found him, so if you scare him off I'll brain you."

Keishin roared with amusement. "And here I thought your boring ass would be single forever."

"And your dumb ass is lucky Saeko took pity on you enough to marry you," Daichi fired back with no hint of malice.

Suga blinked. "Is everyone married off except me and you?"

Shrugging, Keishin said, "Pretty much. Kageyama and Hinata are still unmarried, but only because they're fucking and it ain't legal for them to get married yet."

"I told you!" Suga cried as he pointed at Daichi. "I told you a month into our third year that they'd end up together, but did you believe me? No!"

Daichi held his hands up in surrender. "I told you years ago you won that bet. I still owe you ramen."

Looking at Keishin, Suga asked, "How about the rest of the guys? Asahi? Noya? Tsukishima? Yamaguchi? Narita? Kinoshita?" It surprised him how much he needed to know that his former teammates had done all right where Suga had not.

"Asahi is a barista now, and he loves it!" Daichi chimed.

Nodding, Keishin added, "I haven't heard from Narita or Kinoshita in a while, but last I heard, they both got cushy jobs at Sony. Tsukishima works for the council as a civil engineer. Designs public buildings and crap like that. Yamaguchi and Yachi-kun got married last year after dating for-fucking-ever. I think he liked that she noticed him before he was the vice-captain and all cool. Oh, and Nishinoya is still playing pro."

Seemingly finished with any more questions, Keishin raised a brow as he looked back and forth between Suga and Daichi. "Well, Sugawara, you'd better get some pants on. We could use your insight. Our setters aren't as good this year, but I think they could be with the right push."

With a grin of his own, Suga nodded. "I don't have to work today, so if Daichi doesn't mind lending me a clean shirt, I'd love to." Glancing over at Daichi, he quickly amended, "That is, if you don't mind."

Suga could see Daichi's chest heaving as if he had run a mile, but his next words stole Suga's breath, too. "When you wake up looking like that, you could ask me to saw off my arm and I probably would."

Keishin's groan prompted Suga to get dressed quickly, and within five minutes, they were all on their way to Shiratorizawa High School. Suga was practically vibrating with excitement.


	6. Epilogue

**Notes:** Gaijin means 'guest house.' It's a term for apartments geared specifically for non-Japanese, as the Japanese housing market can be slightly discriminatory towards foreigners. However, since gaijin tend to be lower priced and don't charge nearly as much key money fees as standard Japanese housing, younger Japanese nationals and smaller families have begun favoring places like these when starting out.

* * *

Suga hesitated before he knocked on the door to Daichi's small but cozy-looking house. It had been a month since they had decided to start dating, but Daichi had always come to Sendai to visit Suga's tiny gaijin apartment.

Hiroshi would be there.

It wasn't that Suga wasn't overjoyed to meet Daichi's seven-year-old son; that could not be further from the truth. What filled his gut with overwhelming trepidation right then was the fear that Hiroshi wouldn't like him, and Suga would never make Daichi choose between someone who had flaked out of his life for ten years and his own flesh and blood.

Daichi answered the door with a broad smile before throwing his arms around Suga for a languorous kiss. "I've been looking forward to this all week. Hiroshi can't stop asking about you."

"Only good things, I hope," Suga replied, only half-joking.

"There are only good things," Daichi said easily before tugging Suga inside.

Suga drank in the unfamiliar surroundings with fervor. This place oozed Daichi, with classically attractive yet serviceable furniture and a dark, peaceful blue on the walls. He could almost picture Daichi reclining on the couch with a book in his hands.

"Your home is lovely," Suga said honestly.

With a nod of pride, Daichi gestured towards the kitchen. "I finally learned how to cook just so I wouldn't waste a kitchen like this."

They completed a brief tour of the house before Daichi led them to the back door, pulling back the sliding door. "Hiroshi! Come in and meet Suga!"

A boy who looked like a mirror image of Daichi at the same age, which Suga knew well from the photographs plastering the Sawamura family home, stopped kicking around a soccer ball and ran to his dad for a bracing hug. Suga stared at the child in awe, but nothing prepared him for the pang in his chest from simply seeing the love of his life full of that much bliss and contentment.

"Hello, Hiroshi-kun," Suga said, his voice breathless.

Seemingly remembering his manners, Hiroshi bowed to Suga and said, "Hello, Sugawara-san."

"Such a gentleman," Suga remarked, his smile almost painfully wide. "Did anyone ever tell you that it's good to be polite to strangers, because you never know which one of them will end up being your best friend?"

Hiroshi nodded emphatically. "Daddy says that, too."

When Daichi guffawed, Suga shot him an affectionate glance. "Your daddy is smart about a lot of things. You should always remember that, even when you're eighteen and you're pretty sure you know everything."

With a solemn bow that was comical in a seven-year-old, Hiroshi said soberly, "Yes, Sugawara-san."

Suga ruffled Hiroshi's hair. "I'll make you a deal. If I can call you Hiroshi, then you can just call me Suga."

The boy brightened. "I'd like that very much. You're even better than Daddy says you are."

His cheeks coloring, Suga said, "Your dad is pretty cool, too. But he learned it all from me."

Daichi stammered a denial, but all three of them laughed as they headed back into the house together. Suga and Hiroshi played cards while Daichi cooked, and soon the house smelled like home in a way that felt almost foreign to Suga, but pleasantly so. They ate between long bouts of chatter about anything and everything Hiroshi found interesting, which was a lot. His enthusiasm made Suga's head spin, but in a fantastic way.

It was only after the dishes had been cleared and washed and Daichi slipped out to use the toilet that Hiroshi looked at Suga as if he were studying him. "Suga, do you love my dad?"

Knowing he had to choose his net words carefully, Suga answered, "How would it make you feel if I said I did?"

"I would hope you mean it. He used to look sad a lot, even when he pretended he wasn't. He hasn't been like that since he started going to see you, Suga-chan."

Suga was stymied by the love in Hiroshi's voice for his father, but not surprised. He would never be shocked by the loyalty and faith Daichi could inspire.

Kneeling in front of Hiroshi, Suga said something he meant with every fiber of his being. "I love your daddy very much, and nothing will ever change that." The child's resulting smile made Suga's heart explode with warmth. Unable and unwilling to ignore the pleasant sensation, he placed a reverent kiss on Hiroshi's forehead.

As he stood, arms wrapped around Suga's waist, and he leaned back into Daichi's arms with a sigh. He didn't know how he ever managed to get there, let alone deserve such a second chance, but he was finally home.

* * *

**Notes:** Well, that is everything. Thank you all for your wonderful support. This is my first HQ fic, and because of the utter joyful welcome I got from readers, it won't be the last. This was a lot of fun to write, except for some of the harder parts to read, but anything that's worth doing is worth doing well.

See you next time!


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